Dough Products
Jam Doughnuts
Light, buttery yeast-raised doughnuts made from a soft brioche-style dough, deep-fried until golden, rolled in caster sugar while warm and filled with raspberry jam (or cinnamon sugar if you prefer them plain).
- Serves 16
- Makes 16
- Rise and prove about 3 hrs (or overnight)
- Fry 4–5 min per batch
- Best eaten on the day
- British
Method
Put the flour (500 g), sugar (60 g), salt (1 tsp), yeast (7 g), milk (150 ml), eggs (3 eggs) and lemon zest (½ lemon) if using in the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook. Mix on medium speed for 8 minutes until the dough is smooth and comes away from the sides. (By hand, knead for about 15 minutes; it will be sticky at first.)
With the mixer running, add the butter (75 g) a piece at a time, letting each piece disappear before adding the next. Then mix for another 5 minutes until the dough is glossy and very elastic.
Cover the bowl and leave in a warm place for 1–1½ hours until doubled. For the best flavour (and an easier dough to handle) knock it back and chill it overnight instead.
Cut 16 squares of baking paper and dust them with flour. Divide the dough into 16 pieces of about 55 g and roll each into a tight, smooth ball. Sit each on a paper square, spaced apart on trays, cover loosely and leave to prove for 1–2 hours (up to 3 hours if the dough was chilled), until doubled and puffy.
Heat the oil (as needed) in a deep, heavy saucepan, no more than half full, to 180°C on a thermometer. Never leave the pan unattended.
Lower 2 or 3 doughnuts into the oil on their paper squares, then lift the paper out with tongs once it comes away. Fry for about 2 minutes on each side until deep golden; they will float and puff up. Lift out onto kitchen paper and check the oil is back at 180°C before the next batch.
While they are still warm, roll the doughnuts in the caster sugar (100 g) (mixed with the cinnamon (1 tsp) if you are leaving them unfilled). Leave to cool for at least 10 minutes.
Make a small hole in the pale band around the side of each doughnut with a skewer or the tip of a knife. Spoon the jam (300 g) into a piping bag with a narrow nozzle and pipe about 20 g into each one, until it just starts to feel heavy.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
See also
Chef’s notes
- Oil safety: use a heavy pan no more than half full, keep children away, and have a lid or a fire blanket nearby. Never put water on burning oil. Let the oil cool completely before you move it.
- Temperature matters more than anything. Too hot and the doughnuts burn outside while staying raw inside; too cool and they soak up oil and turn greasy.
- Custard doughnuts: fill with thick crème pâtissière instead of jam (about 900 g for 16).
- Doughnuts are best on the day. They can be reheated for a few minutes in a low oven, or frozen unfilled and refreshed in the oven before sugaring and filling.
Where doughnuts come from
Fried balls of sweet dough came to North America with the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, who called them olykoeks, oil cakes. In his History of New York (1809), Washington Irving describes tea tables with an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called dough-nuts, or oly koeks, by then found mainly in old Dutch families.
Irving’s is not the first mention of the word. Wordorigins.org cites the diary of Thomas Hazard of Rhode Island, who noted fried donotes on 11 February 1782. Early doughnuts were small, nut-sized balls, which may explain the nut; the ring shape, which cooks through more evenly, probably became common in the mid-nineteenth century.
Sources: Wordorigins.org: doughnut; Washington Irving, A History of New York (1809), Project Gutenberg.
How this recipe was developed
We compared Justin Gellatly’s Bread Ahead doughnuts and Gordon Ramsay’s doughnuts with BBC Good Food’s jam doughnuts.
- An enriched dough. Justin Gellatly’s famous doughnuts (from St John and Bread Ahead) use strong flour, eggs, sugar, lemon zest and a good amount of butter beaten into a brioche-like dough; ours is a little less rich and uses milk for some of the eggs.
- Butter added last. Gellatly mixes the dough first and adds the soft butter a little at a time, then beats it until glossy and elastic. It makes the lightest crumb.
- An overnight rest. Gellatly chills the dough overnight; Gordon Ramsay uses a pre-ferment (poolish) for the same reason, a lighter texture and better keeping. We give the overnight chill as the best option.
- 180°C, 2 minutes a side. Both chefs fry at 180°C; Gellatly gives about 2 minutes a side and warns about oil that is too hot or too cool. BBC Good Food’s jam doughnuts (4.3/5 from 22 ratings) also toss them in sugar while warm before filling.
- Fill after sugaring. Gellatly pipes the filling through the pale band around the side, 20–50 g per doughnut; Ramsay finishes his with cinnamon sugar, which we give as the unfilled option.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 31 October 2026):
- Justin Gellatly (Bread Ahead): The doughnut dough (Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding), The Guardian/Observer Food Monthly 2014
- Gordon Ramsay: Doughnuts (20 mini doughnuts)
- BBC Good Food: Jam doughnuts (4.3/5, 22 ratings)
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.